I am a UK-based writer and commentator with a longstanding and close interest in management. A career that dates back to the days before computers has seen me cover everything from popular music to politics with a lot else in between. But business has been my focus for more than 20 years – initially with the Financial Times and then with the Independent on Sunday, where I was part of the launch team. As well as writing extensively on management and related issues, including enterprise and innovation, for the paper and its sister publication, The Independent, I have covered these subjects for a variety of magazines. I also carry out research and analysis through the consultancy IndexB and continue to investigate business issues at the blog futureofbusinessblog.com. I have written three books, the most recent of which is ‘What you need to know about business’ (Capstone/John Wiley and Sons, 2010).

True Leaders Do As A Roman Did - And Focus On The Positive

These days there is a lot of talk about “grit” and “resilience”. Mostly, it appears that older people think that younger people are lacking in this regard. They have a point, of course. Set against the privations of the Great Depression and the Second World War, the problems besetting those starting out in the world, even in this age of austerity, look small. But this is not really the fault of the current generation. After all, they cannot be blamed for only having to contend with the rise of globalisation and the continuing aftermath of a serious financial crisis rather than struggling to find work in an age without a welfare state or fighting in a ferocious war. More seriously, their elders – perhaps out of a concern that their children have a better life than themselves – have sought to ensure that their paths to adulthood have been largely smooth. There has been an assumption that if you work hard at school you will go to a good university and then get the job, if not of your dreams, then at least that you think you deserve.

Of course, it is not quite like that. It never has been. But if you are told it will be it must be quite a shock to find it isn’t. Those that lived through the catastrophes of the twentieth century know that life does not always go according to plan. You can do all the right things and still get into trouble or have setbacks. In the Great Crash, it was not just the speculators who suffered. Many who had sensibly saved for their futures lost everything, too. The realisation that bad things can happen to good people or to people who do all the right things is central to being a well-adjusted person. It is also highly important in the development of business leaders. This is one reason that recruiters set such store by participation in sport. Even the best teams and most conscientious players lose sometimes. In the old adage, it is not how you respond to victory that matters. It is how you handle defeat.

All of which is a lengthy preamble to asserting that Ryan Holiday is probably on to something in setting out the case for an approach to life articulated by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius back in the year 170. The director of marketing at American Apparel describes in his new book The Obstacle Is The Way (Profile Books) how Aurelius wrote – originally as a guide to himself – “one of history’s most effective formulas for overcoming every negative situation we may encounter in life”. Although the message was not original, Aurelius’s skill, adds Holiday, was that in just a few words he “so clearly defined and articulated a timeless idea that he eclipses the great names of those who came before him”. That idea is encapsulated in Aurelius’s concluding words: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Hence the title of Holiday’s book.

But what does this mean? Is he proposing that stoicism become the new mindfulness? No, insisting that he is not pushing “gushing, hazy optimism”, Holiday is simply setting out to show how many of today’s leaders succeed not just by overcoming obstacles (we all know that the path to the top is not always smooth) but by turning them to their advantage.

Among his examples are John D. Rockefeller, one of the giants of American business who combined cool headedness with self-discipline, and Steve Jobs, who in his quest to change consumer technology frequently encouraged subordinates to achieve what they had been convinced was impossible. Holiday also includes figures from the military, politics and other fields. Indeed, Maya Angelou, the writer and activist who died this week, would fit comfortably among their number. A tribute to her recalled a remark she once made: “All my work is meant to say, ‘You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.’ In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and power to endure.” As Holiday writes, “Great individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength.”

That sounds inspiring. But how do we put it into practice? This is where Holiday seeks to come into his own. Saving the details of the philosophy for others, he moves on from Aurelius and breaks down what is required into three critical steps, or “three interdependent, interconnected, and fluidly contingent disciplines: Perception, Action, and the Will.” It is, he asserts, a simple process but never easy.

Exactly what each of those disciplines entails is described in the book. More importantly, in concise prose and with examples drawn from history, business and elsewhere, Holiday convinces the reader that with a little effort it is possible to follow suit and turn adversity to advantage. His argument is that, by accepting there will be problems, you can prepare for them and so be in a better position to overcome them. In his view, successful people quietly deal with what life throws at them.

He says he originally wrote the book for people of his own generation who had graduated into a serious financial situation at a time when some of the safety nets that we had grown used were being taken away. In a sense, he was seeking to inspire them to abandon defeatism and instead adopt some of the pioneering spirit and determination that had created America. But his approach has also caught the attention of people already in leadership positions and he has talked about the ideas with such organizations as Twitter and Google.

Perhaps the book’s greatest value is to encourage readers to seek out the original texts (Holiday himself is a voracious reader known for his reading lists), safe in the knowledge that it is possible to be both a philosopher and a doer. Essentially, the book is a reminder that – even in this fast-moving, high-tech world – human challenges remain pretty much the same as they have always been. As Holiday says, there’s “an immense amount of wisdom” out there if you know where to look.

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